


Toiling Upwards in the Night

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Canon Compliant, Demons, Drug Use, Guardian Angels, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of self-harm, Multi, Not a Crossover, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:39:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's never been about Seokjin or Namjoon, not really. They merely do their jobs, as best they can."Speaking generally, they aren’t directly involved in the day-to-day lives of humans. That goes for both himself and for Jin, wherever Jin is, because with seven billion people to save or damn, they just can’t be involved with everyone. Namjoon wouldn’t even be involved with these ones, he knows, except he has a Plan to Save Millions, a calling, and it starts with Min Yoongi."





	1. Yoongi

**Author's Note:**

> Yeesh, this starts out dark (and marks my falling off the wagon re: angst). But rest assured, it doesn't stay that way! I'll be updating the tags as I go. I'd say this pays loose homage to _Good Omens_ , rather than incorporating it.

What Jin doesn’t understand about salvation—what he necessarily can’t understand about it, given that his job is not to save people—is that it only becomes more difficult on a case-by-case basis. Taken at large, the Lord has given the human race a nice checklist for salvation (though what they’ve done with that checklist is…slightly alarming). The further away someone has strayed, and the closer Namjoon is to them, the harder they are to bring back. Something about the closeness makes them so  _stubborn_.

Case in point, this underground rapper currently holed up in his tiny bedroom in Daegu, a blunt in his mouth and an exacto blade tracing idle patterns on his arm. Namjoon feels something inside him crumple at the sight. Humans are so delicate. It doesn’t take more than a little pinprick to make them bleed, and maybe that’s a metaphor.

Namjoon knows this kid has more to offer the world, like he knows it’s going to rain on Tuesday and that Jin is out there somewhere causing minor inconveniences to people. And Namjoon is on his way to thwart Seokjin, or at least to not actively help him, but first he has to save this kid.

His name is Min Yoongi, and he goes by the stage name of Gloss. Namjoon has been trailing him for some time, watching him walk a careful line between _enough_ and _too much_.

In the time Namjoon has known Yoongi, he’s been on the rise in the underground, but he’s also been back and forth from the psychiatric ward and his parents’ home. Min Yoongi is sad, scared, and ferocious, but Namjoon looks at him and sees hope and the will to overcome. It’s like a light shining out from him, and it only hardens Namjoon’s conviction that this kid is worth saving, because he’s got a role to play.

Which is why he’s here, at a dingy club, a drink of something bright blue and coconut-flavored in his hand as he watches the performers pass by, one by one. (Coconut flavoring had been a joke by the Lord, like so much else, but they seemed to take it very seriously.)

Min Yoongi is last on the roster for the night, and Namjoon is patient until he stands on the stage, so small, so thin, his hand delicate like the bones of a bird’s wing as he clutches the mic. The voice that tears out of Min Yoongi is raw, the lyrics raw, the whole of it an experience of something uniquely human that Namjoon can’t touch.

The crowd in the club roars, shouts the hook back at Yoongi, becomes a swaying mass of empathy, and Namjoon lights up a cigarette and holds it in his free hand as he alternates between it and the drink, which is rapidly draining. “Where does he go?” Namjoon asks, leaning in to speak to the bartender. “After he performs.”

The bartender shrugs. “He usually just leaves, but you could catch him after. He’s not exactly low-profile.”

Yoongi’s set is over by the time Namjoon finishes his drink and his cig, and he stubs it out on the bar for lack of an ashtray. He blends into the crowd as he trails Yoongi, wearing a gray hoodie and a beanie and low-slung sweatpants. (It’s a far cry from his usual style, which tends more toward the obnoxiously preppy, a fact for which he entirely blames Jin.) He sees Yoongi duck into the club’s bathroom and braces himself for the worst.

It’s empty in the bathroom except for the closed stall, silent except for the hoarse sobs Namjoon can hear wracking Yoongi’s body. He sends up a quick prayer for luck and leans against the wall opposite the stall, resolving to burn these clothes later.

“”Hey,” Namjoon says awkwardly, and, “you shouldn’t do that.”

There’s a long pause before Yoongi answers. “Do what?”

“That pill he gave you. It’s…what, molly? G? Don’t take it.”

“Why not?” Yoongi’s voice is flat, like he gave all he had onstage and can’t muster any feeling. “It helps.”

Namjoon considers his words carefully. “Because one day soon, you’ll be on a train to Seoul, and when you get there, you’re going to want to be clean. And it’s hard to _get_ clean. Might as well be there in the first place.” The toilet flushes, and Namjoon knows the pill is gone, along with whatever else Yoongi had on him. Small victories.

“Why should I listen to you? Are you…who are you? How do you know anything about me?”

Namjoon smiles a sad, bitter smile that Yoongi can’t see. “I guess you could call me your guardian angel, though really it’s just that I’m on call until I’m done with whatever the Lord has planned for me. You should listen to me because I’m very old and I’ve seen a lot, and I know about you because you have a role to play and I’ve been watching over you to make sure you don’t self-destruct. Because I care for you, probably more than you’ll ever know or realize.” He laughs. “Are you done giving me a standardized test? Do I pass?”

“You’re fucking insane.”

“Oh, kid, give me some _news_.”

“How the fuck.”

“Am I insane?"

“Do you know anything about me?” Yoongi sounds desperate. “How can you _know_?”

Namjoon wants nothing more than for this poor damaged teenager to come out of the bathroom stall so Namjoon can wrap his arms around him and comfort him. It’s not his place to ask the Lord for such things, so he doesn’t, just wraps his arms around himself instead. “I can see you, Min Yoongi. You’re a fucking bundle of neuroses and self-loathing but underneath you’re so _bright_. You’ve got so much ahead of you. Whether you choose to believe in Big Geezy or not, believe in that.” He fumbles in the pocket of his sweats for a second and pulls out two pieces of glossy cardstock, sliding them under the stall door. “Two tickets to Seoul, one-way. The first is for when you chicken out. Think you’re not good enough. The second is for when you remember this conversation and how deeply you want to produce music and actually make it.”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything, but he leans down and picks up the tickets from the grimy floor.

Namjoon is about to leave him to his contemplation when Yoongi speaks. “Thanks.”

A surprised smile lights up Namjoon’s face. They don’t usually thank him. (The Lord usually gets the credit.)

“My pleasure, Min Yoongi. I’ll see you in a few months.”


	2. An Expected Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namjoon receives a call from an old friend.

Hell invented bureaucracy, which was no surprise to anyone, really. In one of their bicentennial efforts to take over Heaven, they’d even managed to _almost_ spread bureaucracy to Heaven. It had only gotten to inter-departmental memos before the Higher-ups That Be managed to shut it down, however, and the denizens of Hell returned to their usual vaguely mutinous rumbling.

This is how, over 300 years ago now, Namjoon had met Seokjin. Seokjin was rather a half-hearted Duke of Hell, and Namjoon was a rather open-minded Angel, and they’d hit it off in an exchange of interdepartmental memos. (These contained, in the beginning, increasingly creative insults to one another, which devolved into creatively insulting poetry, which devolved into a chat about their mutual fondness for that one human, what was his name? Shakes something. Shakespeare?)

Namjoon didn’t have to take a cab back from Daegu, but take a cab back from Daegu he did, just to annoy Seokjin. It was only a few nights.

No sooner has he reentered Big Hit’s dorm and nodded his greetings to the other man living there than his illicitly acquired and kept phone starts buzzing in his pocket. “I won’t tell Bang-PD if you get me another pack of cigarettes,” Hunchul bargains with Namjoon, who nods absently and ducks out to take the call. It can only be one person, because so far, only one person has this number.

“Jin,” he answers brightly, and the man at the other end makes a confirming grumbling noise.

“First it’s your underground rap career. _Underground rap career_? Then it’s you gallivanting off to save a single underground rapper. _Underground rapper_. Do you have some kind of new hobby I’ve not been informed of? Do you know how _annoying_ it is to have to put off my midmorning tea to go save a few humans so that you don’t get a writeup or—whatever Heaven does?” Jin is starting to lose steam and he knows it. “I’ve been reduced to screwing with the code in self-checkout machines so that people contemplate murder.”

Namjoon huffs out a laugh. “Are you done now?”

Jin (Seokjin, Namjoon reminds himself) takes an audible deep breath. “Actually, no! And another thing! What if someone _stabbed you_? What if you got _roofied_ in whatever gross nightclub you ended up at this time!”

“Jin, I think you’re overlooking a very important fact here—“

“…has ever _tried_ to murder an angel topside, we don’t _know_ you can’t die, we only _assume_ …”

“Jin, I’m more immortal than you are. If there are varying degrees of it.”

“And—and— _Runch Randa_? You couldn’t think of a better name than that? Namjoon—“

“It’s from MapleStory,” Namjoon protests weakly.

Jin winds it down for real now. “…and you’re my only friend who hasn’t _tortured_ anyone in the last century, so I just really want you to be safe. And to do your own damn job, because I don’t know how to do it for you. I got a few people to go to confession, though.”

“Small victories,” Namjoon says, and Jin’s breathing hard on the other end of the line. “They mostly save themselves. Jin.” His voice is gentle, cajoling. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not. You’re doing the Lord’s work and you’re perfectly happy doing it.”

There’s a beat, and Namjoon says, “Fair enough. I don’t mean to make you worry, though. It wasn’t my intention.”

The lull that stretches between them is longer this time, and finally, Seokjin breaks the silence. “There was…a dancer, in Gwangju. His girlfriend left him. He was in a bad way. I told him to look up at the sky, your usual philosophical spin. He seemed better after that.” Jin pauses. “I’m glad you’re Namjoon now. I think it’s prettier than Phanuel.”

“I almost called myself Elpis, but that seemed too spot-on. You could have been more creative, though.”

“I like Jin. It’s easy to remember. Seokjin.”

“ _al-Jinni_ sounds like a stage name, these days,” Namjoon agrees. “When are you going to come join my band?”

“I’m _in Seoul_ , but I’m not singing unless I absolutely must. Especially not for your high-minded goals. Truth. Salvation.” Namjoon can almost hear him mock-shuddering. “Love for one’s fellow man. It’s all very trite, isn’t it?” Another pause, and then, “Tell Hunchul hi from me.”

“I always do. I’ll see you soon?”

“Three years.”

“Two.”

“Fine.” Namjoon smiles.

“Don’t be a stranger, Jin.”

“Don’t manage to get yourself killed, featherbrain.” Jin closes the call and Namjoon is left leaning against the brick of the Big Hit office.

He pockets his phone and strides off toward the nearest convenience store to pick up Hunchul’s Marlboros. When he gets back, passing off the pack and Jin’s greeting (“my wife says hello, _hyung_ ”), Hunchul makes an affirming noise. Namjoon tidies up the living area and for once nothing shatters in his grip. For a celestial being, he has rotten luck with material objects. Hunchul breaks the “no smoking” rule and lights one up, and Namjoon opens a window to vent the smell.

They coexist quietly for a bit, before Hunchul speaks. “You know Bang-PD is holding auditions?”

“No, when did he tell you that?”

“Just now, while you were on the phone. Ikje’s auditioning. Donghyuk’ll be thrilled.”

Ikje will leave, though, and so will Hunchul and Donghyuk. The others will stay, Namjoon knows. That’s all he knows, because it’s out of his jurisdiction to know more than that. He thinks of Yoongi, finally on his way to Seoul, and a smile touches his lips. “When is the audition?”

“Two weeks,” Hunchul replies, smoke cascading from his lips. “It’s real, Namjoon. We’re on our way up.” Hunchul takes another drag, holds in the smoke, and exhales with, “Wonder what shit Bang-PD’s gonna throw our way to fuck it up now.”

“You shouldn’t talk about him like that,” Namjoon replies automatically. “Whatever it is, it’s a choice. Staying or leaving. So just…spend some time thinking about what you are and aren’t willing to give up for this. That way, if he throws a wrench in, you won’t have to agonize over the decision.”

Hunchul looks stunned, smoke pouring from his mouth again. “When did you grow up, Joonie?”

Namjoon smiles, cryptically this time. “Oh, I think I’ve always been an old soul.”


	3. Interlude: Seokjin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief meeting by chance, which will hardly be remembered.

Seokjin has been friends with Namjoon for a long time. An _excruciatingly_ long time, one might even say, were one so inclined, and Seokjin was.

The only reason Seokjin continued to cover for Namjoon while he was off on his Mission From God was because Namjoon did the same for Seokjin, even if leading people into temptation and damnation and such put a little guilty crease between Namjoon’s eyebrows. Namjoon liked to call Seokjin halfhearted, but Seokjin liked to think of it as _expedient_. It was so much simpler to cause havoc when one caused small-scale havoc, because the CEO of Hell had sent an interdepartmental request form ages ago and gotten that handy passage about sin within the mind equalling _actual sin_ added to Matthew.

Namjoon had a tendency to get it into his head that whatever he was called to do at that _exact moment_ was the Most Important Thing He Could Be Doing, and that resulted in a lot of perplexing phone calls from BHE’s dorm, like the one he’d just ended.

_“A…rapper.”_

_“In Daegu. He’s important, he’s going to play a role.”_

_“In what?”_

_Namjoon lets out a frustrated noise. “In whatever ineffable plan the Lord has for me. Look, Jin, this isn’t something I can ignore, he needs to be_ saved _and I need you to_ cover _for me.”_

_“Namjoon.”_

_“Please?”_

_“…Fine, but you’re going to owe me a favor.”_

_“Fine.”_

_“To be called in whenever and in whatever manner I see fit?”_

_“Fine, Jin, fine, thank you, you’re my favorite—“_

_“I know, Joon. Just. Be safe?”_

_“Jin, are you developing a heart?”_

_“I’m developing an ulcer, but nice try.”_

_“Jin?”_

_“What.”_

_“You really are my favorite.”_

Seokjin hates that something softens in him so easily to Namjoon’s gentle affection. They’ve been dancing around the subject for a century now, but Seokjin has come to terms with the fact that, entirely apart from their very _friendship_ breaking several ineffable divine laws, Namjoon is falling in love with humanity itself.

Seokjin loves humans. They’re entertaining. They claw their way out of damnation and they chuck themselves headfirst from salvation in roughly equal amounts, and then change their minds the next day and repent and return to statuses quo. Is he _in love_ with _humanity_? No.

“On your way to chapel?” he asks the group of college students loitering in the cold on Gwangju’s campus. They all answer in the affirmative. “Mind if I walk with you? I haven’t confessed in a while, probably good for me.” He smiles his most charming smile, and it disarms the students entirely. He sees them into the church down the street and then quietly parts from their ranks.

Saving people, saving people. It’s all very cut-and-dry, until one gets entangled in the ranks of humans. He watches a few of them pass by into the chapel, all utterly unremarkable, all pious and boring. Seokjin only personally picks out the really interesting ones. Once in a while, when he covers for his truant angelic friend, he catches sight of someone who burns brighter than their surroundings. It’s Namjoon’s department to know _why_ they do that, but from what Seokjin has managed to wrangle out of Namjoon’s feathery brain, they’re the ones who have some overworked role to play in the Lord’s Grand Ineffable Plan.

Today is one of those days. Seokjin is wandering up and down alleys, looking for drug addicts and victims of society like a good substitute Angel, when he washes out into a brightly-lit plaza, bustling with vendors and street performers. It’s there that he spots the kid dressed like he belongs in a hip-hop video, slumped over on a bench and scribbling something in a notebook.

Seokjin approaches him quickly and takes the seat next to him on the bench. The kid barely looks up, too busy wallowing in whatever trivial human matter has him so despondent. Seokjin clears his throat and the kid pulls out his earbuds and faces Seokjin. “Can I help you? The university’s that way,” he adds helpfully, pointing a finger. Seokjin smiles.

“Oh, thank you. I couldn’t help but notice that you look very sad,” Seokjin says carefully. “Seokjin,” he introduces himself belatedly.

“Hoseok. Am I that distracting?” What could have been a thousand-watt smile had it not been dimmed by emotion spreads over Hoseok’s lips. Seokjin catches a glimpse of the notebook. A love letter. A breakup, then. And Hoseok, slumped on a park bench looking for all the world like the floor has been ripped from underneath him, so one of them had made a huge mistake, and Seokjin placed his bets on the girl.

“I notice things a lot,” Seokjin hedges. “I have a friend who’s made it his life’s mission to save people. Not a minister, I don’t think he has the self-control. Just an asshat. He pulls me into his idiocy from time to time.”

This startles a laugh out of Hoseok, who closes the notebook and turns to Seokjin, body language opening up. “Yeah?”

“For what it’s worth…when I’ve been down,” not, strictly speaking, the truth, but Hoseok doesn’t need to know that, “my friend reminds me to look up at the sky.”

Hoseok does just that. There are no clouds today, and the sky is a pale shade of blue. “Does he have a reason?” Hoseok inquires, squinting against the sunlight.

“It reminds us how…vast it all is? How, in the grand scheme of things, individually, it’s all trivial. A failed test. A bad meal. A cheating girlfriend,” Seokjin jabs at Hoseok’s fresh wound, just because he can. “And the motion of the cosmos doesn’t stop for it. So, to summarize his lecture, this too shall pass.” Seokjin glances over at Hoseok, who’s still staring upward, and reaches out, touching Hoseok’s arm gently.

When he lets his hand fall, Hoseok looks a bit lighter. Seokjin stands from the bench and dusts himself off. “Thank you for the directions. It was very kind of you.”

Hoseok blinks up at him. “Yeah. Any time. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Seokjin agrees, and considers his good deed of the day done.

Now, he has to go put into effect one of his simpler, cleverer temptations to sin, and now he has a story for Namjoon, too. How lovely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi will be in the next chapter, I promise :3 And that chapter is probably going to be hecka long, because I've got a lot of plot to get through.


	4. Like a tree by the river of truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fate cannot be altered, but its course isn't always as obvious as it seems to Namjoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys don’t even understand how much underground rap I listened to while writing this. I felt like such a hipster. DNH is fucking lit as fuck, by the way. I’m also gonna come upfront and say that 90% of what I know about DNH ensemble is from SMTM and DNH’s lyrics, and the timeline of BTS is super vague right around this time.
> 
> Hunchul (Iron) goes on SMTM, and he gets signed. He’s then embroiled in scandal after scandal. The most recent I remember was him and Kidoh getting pulled up on marijuana charges and incarcerated. Universally, it’s very hard to escape the attitude of poverty, even if you escape the reality.
> 
> It’s about time the real plot got started!

_Mid-2010_

Namjoon doesn’t attend the auditions. He isn’t asked, which he finds to be a lapse in Bang Si Hyuk’s judgement, because it’s Namjoon who will be fronting this group soon enough even if it’s nominally Hunchul. He supposes he can’t fault Bang-PD for it. It’s not like he knows.

Namjoon really would be helpful in judging the rap rounds, at least. Seokjin makes fun of him, but before he’d followed his calling to BHE, Namjoon had been doing well for himself, lifting remarks from his letters to Seokjin and working them into raps. It’s music with a message, and what are angels, really, if not messengers? (It’s even in the Greek, isn’t it? _Aggelos_ , one who announces.) 

(Namjoon steadfastly refuses to think of his attempts to _relate_ to the human experience, because that had only ended in cringeworthy verses rife with testosterone. Yes, best to forget that ever happened. He’s a created being, which by definition makes him imperfect.)

Hunchul is out of the dorm when Bang-PD shows up with Ikje and two others in tow. “These are our new recruits,” he says. “Choi Ikje, who I’m sure you know.” Namjoon nods and tries not to react. “Jung Hoseok. Dancer, rapper.” A lithe boy raises his hand cheerily. “Min Yoongi. Rapper.” Namjoon schools his emotions into something that won’t show on his face, and Yoongi lifts one pale hand in greeting. The sleeve of his sweatshirt falls back from his wrist, and he tugs it down absently when he lets his hand drop.

Namjoon steps aside to let them pass, and his eyes are drawn first to Yoongi, but then to the other one—Hoseok. There’s more to Hoseok than is first apparent, a gingerness in the way he carries himself, like he’s scared his heart will fall out if he jostles it too much. Like Yoongi, though, he’s also bright, drawing Namjoon to him like a moth to flame, and he finds himself wanting to know more about this dancer-cum-rapper who’s been unceremoniously dumped on Bangtan’s doorstep.

Yoongi, though, is the first to trudge into the dorm, gutting his baggage on the couch and looking dispassionately at Namjoon. “What’s the layout here?”

“Bathroom,” Namjoon points, “bedroom, we all sleep together, kitchen, living room. Shoes go there.” He gestures unnecessarily to the shoe rack next to the door. “If you have medicine, make sure it’s labelled with your name.” Yoongi nods curtly and Namjoon trails Hoseok into the bedroom, where he’s dragged his own luggage.

There’s the sound of a whirlwind of motion in the living room, and Donghyuk ducks into the dorm long enough to scan the bedroom, say, “New blood? Get some,” then immediately depart again. Namjoon looks over to Hoseok, who’s got a perplexed expression on his face. “That’s Donghyuk,” he explains. “He goes by the stage name Supreme Boi, he’s part of DNH, a pain in my ass, and a bomb-ass producer. He’s been here since original sin.” A beat. “He’s also in Bangtan. It’s me, Hunchul, Ikje, Donghyuk, and now, I guess, you and Yoongi. You’re a dancer?”

Hoseok smiles distractedly in Namjoon’s direction. “I was in a dance collective in Gwangju.”

 _Gwangju?_ Namjoon remembers Seokjin mentioning a dancer from Gwangju, and now, the crack in Hoseok’s professional veneer makes more sense. Namjoon takes a moment to admire the Lord’s work, the chance meetings which turn out to be more, the careful interweaving of lives. He says none of this aloud, opting for a safe, “Oh?”

“Mmm,” Hoseok affirms, unpacking neatly folded clothing. “Like Daenamhyup, but for dance,” he clarifies, and Namjoon nods along. “I learned to rap. Dancing’s my thing. JYP wanted me to rap, though. I looked up some of DNH’s stuff, it’s intense.”

“I doubt Bangtan will be like that, though,” Namjoon assures, because there’s an air of _change_ in the dorm now that Yoongi and Hoseok are here, and it feels _right_. That’s all his limited omniscience gives up, though, as Hoseok unpacks and organizes.

Hoseok gestures to the bunk that will be his. “You can sit, you know.” Namjoon does as he’s bidden, and then Hoseok says, “The other guy. Yoongi? Bang-PD-nim made the rappers battle, freestyle. They said Ikje won, but I thought Yoongi was better. They were the last two standing, anyway.” Hoseok smiles. “You sure this isn’t a rap crew?”

“Pretty sure,” Namjoon says through an answering smile. “I’m Kim Namjoon, by the way.”

“I know,” Hoseok replies. “DNH,” he adds, realizing that Namjoon has not yet introduced himself.

“Nice to know I’ve gained infamy,” Namjoon quips. “About me. I’m from Ilsan. I can’t dance. I’m learning English. I’m sure the fact that they’ve brought on a dancer who _happens_ to rap is confusing the hell out of the others.”

Hoseok stills at this, a troubled expression casting over him. “You know as much as I do. From what I understand, Bangtan’s a hip-hop group. I guess even Big Bang needs choreo.”

Something about this doesn’t sit quite right with Namjoon, but he lets it slide in favor of the uneasy silence that falls between himself and Hoseok.

***

_Mid-2010_

Speaking generally, they aren’t directly involved in the day-to-day lives of humans. That goes for both himself and for Jin, wherever Jin is, because with seven billion people to save or damn, they just _can’t_ be involved with everyone. Namjoon wouldn’t even be involved with these ones, he knows, except he has a Plan to Save Millions, a calling, and it starts with Min Yoongi.

Alright, maybe it doesn’t start with Min Yoongi, but it’s much more poetic that way, and Namjoon’s been a sucker for poets ever since that Roman. Catullus had been his name, and he’d fallen in love with a married woman and written her poems upon poems, and still she hadn’t given him the time of day. Catullus lived to be 30, and Namjoon remembers watching from on high as Catullus walked into the sea.

Maybe it starts with Daenamhyup. Maybe it starts earlier than that, when Namjoon is writing letters to Seokjin and a part of his heart quickens and he _knows_ what he’s meant to do. Or maybe beginnings are Möbius strips, with one endless side and infinite points.

Yoongi is so beautiful, Namjoon thinks. He’s quiet and breakable and terrified but resolute, and he’s _beautiful_. Namjoon watches him putter around, tidying up Bangtan’s workspace, before he turns his pale, worn-out face to Namjoon and says, “You stare a lot.”

(Yoongi was cagey around Namjoon for the first week after he moved in. To anyone who wasn’t looking for it, this would have just seemed like Yoongi’s _modus operandi_ —he’s not known for his love of people, and he prefers to spend his time in his room or deep into his work at the studio, asleep or writing. They see him at practices and at meals, and sometimes Namjoon catches Yoongi casting covert glances at Hoseok like he’s trying to solve a puzzle, but Yoongi makes a point of never being alone with any of them.)

“Huh?” Namjoon answers intelligently, casting his eyes down. Yoongi’s sleeve has rolled back to showcase the scars on his wrist, not fresh but not yet fading, and he tugs it down when Namjoon’s eyes fall.

“At me. You stare a lot at me.”

Namjoon smiles, puts his notebook into his bag. “Maybe I just think you’re cute.” Yoongi bristles at the descriptor, and Namjoon huffs out a laugh. “You are, completely adorable, but that’s not the reason. I worry about you.”

“Well, don’t,” Yoongi orders abruptly, and then, as if he realizes himself, he backpedals. “I mean, why? I’m your _hyung_ , and I’m an adult. We’re coworkers.”

Instead of answering directly, Namjoon presses his lips together and looks at the space left of Yoongi’s head. “Have you ever read _The Awakening_?” Yoongi shakes his head. “It’s about this woman who doesn’t love her husband and falls in love with someone else. And then he leaves, but she’s already had a taste of independence. She wants more. And at the end, she drowns herself in the sea. Among other things, it’s the ultimate act of independence.” Namjoon pauses. “There’s a million stories like it. People…need to feel in control of something. And so they do things they know they shouldn’t, flout rules, because even if there are consequences, their actions were their own.”

Yoongi looks troubled now, and so Namjoon keeps going. “It’s human nature. It’s as simple as falling in love with someone society tells you not to, or as complicated as committing suicide by swimming too far into the sea. But what I’m trying to say here is…Bang-PD-nim is going to make me leader, eventually. We all know that. And I just want to make sure that the rules you break are good for you.” Yoongi scowls, opens his mouth to retort, and Namjoon hurriedly adds, “No, no, not good for the company, or for the group. Good for you, Min Yoongi. We haven’t known each other long, but I care for you.”

A pregnant pause stretches out between them, and Namjoon gazes at Yoongi’s face, crinkled just slightly in thought. “ _Hyung_?” he prompts.

“…Nothing,” Yoongi manages, after a moment. “You just sound so much like someone I knew once.” Another abrupt stop, and then, “I’m taking my medicine. And I got clean before I moved to Seoul. I’m. Adjusting. I’ll be fine.” The way he says it makes it sound like he’s convincing himself, and Namjoon puts his hand on Yoongi’s shoulder gently.

“I know you will,” he murmurs. When he takes his hand away, Yoongi looks like a weight’s been lifted from his shoulders, and Namjoon allows himself a tiny moment of celebration. _I’ve still got it_.

***

_Two Months Later_

“It’s been long enough now,” Hunchul declares, bottles clinking ominously as he drops the shopping bag on the table, “that you children can’t get out of this one. Bottoms up, fetuses.”

They’ve all gathered in the dorm for what Hunchul terms a _team bonding experience_ and Namjoon thinks is a disaster in the making. The soju goes quickly, and it’s only an hour and a half into the stilted conversation between the _hyungs_ and the _dongsaengs_ that someone (Namjoon thinks it was probably Donghyuk) declares a rap battle.

Yoongi and Namjoon decline on the grounds that Yoongi is almost sober and Namjoon can’t freestyle to save his life, and Hoseok declines on the grounds that he doesn’t want to and doesn’t need a better reason. Hunchul, Hyosang, Ikje, and Donghyuk form an approximation of a circle and take turns being hype man, and Yoongi watches on in amusement and secondhand embarrassment as they get progressively drunker.

(“Soju?” Namjoon asks Yoongi, proffering his bottle, and Yoongi shakes his head.

“I can’t drink much,” Yoongi says by way of reluctant explanation. “It doesn’t interact well with my antidepressants.”

What a long way they’ve come, Namjoon contemplates through the haze of alcohol, from the boy who’d held a molly pill in his hand in a dingy bathroom stall and asked _why not_.)

Namjoon is only halfway listening as Yoongi talks about his short-lived basketball career, focused on Hoseok at the other end of the couch. As Hoseok drinks, he collapses in on himself. He looks miserable, and it’s tearing Namjoon’s inebriated attention away from Yoongi’s winding anecdotes.

He can’t afford to get this involved, this attached. He can’t _feel_ this draw to comfort Hoseok no matter what the cost, because he’s already in too deep with Yoongi and Seokjin and he needs the leverage of detachment to do his _job._ But Hoseok is crumbling just like Yoongi was, and Namjoon is an architect of hope and light and whatever-the-hell-else, so he needs to excuse himself from Yoongi’s recounting Tales of a Shooting Guard and go—

“Namjoon? I’ll be back, I’m just gonna go—“ Yoongi stands abruptly. Namjoon snaps out of his reverie. He observes as Yoongi holds a rushed conversation with Hoseok, and then Hoseok stands up, allowing Yoongi to frog-march him toward the bedroom. Namjoon, concerned, follows them once he convinces his legs to work, but stands outside the bedroom, allowing the conversation to drift over him as he peers around the doorframe.

The thing about humans is that they’re tricky. Just when you think you’ve mastered the art of shepherding them in the general direction the Lord wants them to go, they surprise you. Just when you’re about to take one of them in your arms and assure them of their worth, you’re upstaged. Namjoon doesn’t know whether to be offended or amazed, but the fact of the matter is that Hoseok is curled up on the floor with Yoongi, who’s listening intently as Hoseok pours out his insecurities—his girlfriend, who found someone _better_ ; his wretched homesickness; his fear that he will always be the odd one out of the group, thrown in based on pure talent with six others who share none of his values. Yoongi—prickly, standoffish, sober Yoongi—puts his arms around Hoseok and holds him, letting Hoseok sob into his chest as he whispers words of comfort, understanding.

Namjoon doesn’t know how long he sits outside the bedroom, spectating, in awe. Eventually, Hoseok’s crying tapers off into exhausted silence, and Yoongi keeps holding him close, running one hand up and down Hoseok’s back, the other tangled in Hoseok’s hair. “It’s okay,” Namjoon hears Yoongi murmuring, and, “I’ll do better as a _hyung_ , Hoseokie, you don’t have to cry.”

Hours later, Namjoon slinks clumsily into the bedroom to sleep, having declared the winner of the rap tournament _ex nihilo_ at Hunchul’s insistence, and has to toe his way around Hoseok, curled up in Yoongi’s lap, dead to the world, and Yoongi, his fine features slack, asleep sitting up.

After that night, those revelations and experiences, the group at large seems freer to bond. Find their identities, all that good stuff. Hoseok, in particular, blooms under the pressure of stardom, his smile coming brighter and more often. Yoongi puts on an act of grudging tolerance for Hoseok, but Namjoon sees him opening up as well, letting them all get closer to him.

There’s a feeling Namjoon gets before something _big_ happens, though, and it’s like a hurricane has been brewing somewhere important but too far away to impact him. A deep-seated sense of _change_ , and it’s been eating at Namjoon since he watched Yoongi plant himself, demanding that the world move while he and Hoseok remained still.

***

_Mid-2011_

When he’s called, alone, into Bang-PD’s office, Namjoon’s first reaction is not confusion, but resignation. Something must have happened, or something must be in the works, he knows when Bang Si Hyuk closes the door behind Namjoon and gestures perfunctorily at one of the uncomfortable chairs. “Sit.”

Namjoon sits.

“I’m going to tell you a few things that can’t leave this room, Namjoon.”

As he’s constitutionally incapable of lying, Namjoon says, “They’ll ask me, though.”

“Tell Hoseok, and tell Yoongi, then,” Bang-PD relents. “They’re staying.”

The part of Namjoon that has been buzzing lately with the feeling of motion sickness calms at this. “Staying?” he questions outwardly, and Bang-PD nods sharply.

“We can’t market a hip-hop crew with Big Bang releases lined up on all sides _and_ 2NE1 _and_ YG’s soloists charting. It has to be later, and it’s going to be an idol group.”

Namjoon feels as if the air has just been punched out of him. “Hunchul—“ he starts, and Bang-PD cuts him off.

“Hunchul knows, and he’s leaving. Ikje as well. Donghyuk will continue in Big Hit as a producer.”

“You can’t do this to him, he—we’re—“

He’s never felt quite like this. With certainty, he knows that this is the plan he’s meant to follow, but the deep, innate need to _struggle_ for what he’s come to see as right isn’t familiar.

(Hunchul was Namjoon’s first formal introduction to so much, his first taste of what it would take to work among the living. His biggest supporter, when Namjoon had come to DNH, and later when Namjoon was approached after a battle and offered a trainee position at Big Hit. Hunchul was also jagged around the edges, fragile like so many of them seemed to be, terribly and wonderfully conscious of where he’d come from and who he was.

BHE dragged them up from nothing, but for Hunchul, it represented more—his craft, honed over years of living meager paycheck to meager paycheck, finally returning something to its devotee. Bangtan was Hunchul’s dream, a large-scale Daenamhyup, and with the addition of Ikje and Hyosang, it looked like Hunchul was getting what he wanted.

Before a few seconds ago, Namjoon had not known what it was to _doubt_.)

“We’re a _hip-hop group_ , Daenamhyup—“

“Daenamhyup isn’t my concern, Namjoon. Those with passion and artistry will find a way to make it work for them, and those who lack it will not.” Bang Si Hyuk’s face does not betray his emotions.

Quiet fury wells up in Namjoon on Hunchul’s behalf, but he nourishes it, lets it simmer beneath the surface. Now is not his time.

Empirically, this is the business-savvy decision, and, in the long run, it will be the best for Namjoon as well. In this moment, though, he’s reduced to myopia, tunnel vision, and he can think only of Hunchul, hung out to dry with no money and no job. The office is silent. Namjoon’s nails bite into the heel of his hand. His thoughts race; he itches for a notebook to write them all down. He knows that here, he is powerless. If he argues too much, he will be cut as quickly and ruthlessly as the others have been, and Bang-PD will find someone to replace him. Music is a business with little integrity, all its humanity coming out in glimpses, one hit song at a time.

Bang Si Hyuk is the one to break the silence. “The idol group will have a hip-hop concept, and you will be given as much artistic freedom as we can give you. A crew, though… It’s not feasible. I’m sorry, Namjoon.” Namjoon will give him that much—he does sound genuinely remorseful as he rips away their identity.

Namjoon takes a moment to collect his scattered thoughts. Artistic integrity, Hunchul, DNH— _Yoongi_. Too many loose ends, too many questions. He’s only just learned to be human, and now he has to scale back, allow himself to be manufactured into a performing machine?

Namjoon doubts.

“And Hyosang?” he manages finally, but it’s only a token protest.

Bang-PD hums thoughtfully. “We’re auditioning again for new members, and once we’ve added two, I’m phasing him out as well. There will be a group debuting behind you, at Stardom, and Kidoh will fit with the concept.”

Namjoon hesitates before voicing his newest concern. “Hoseok will take the news well, but what about Yoongi?”

“With Hunchul leaving, Namjoon, that makes you leader. He’s your _hyung_ , but you have authority. You’ve been acting leader for a while now, anyway.” Namjoon presses his lips together but doesn’t protest. “Your role is simple: Represent the opinions of the company to your members, and represent their opinions to me. Corral them when they get out of hand, and keep them in line. What you choose to make of it is your own. Suho is a leader, but so is GD.”

With this, Bang-PD dismisses Namjoon from the office, and Namjoon is left with an uncertain future and another new feeling: the deep burden of responsibility.

***

_“Hello. You’ve reached the voicemail box of Kim Seokjin. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and I, or one of my representatives, will return your call at our earliest convenience.”_

“Hey. Hey, Jin. I don’t. I don’t know what I want you to do. It’s not like you’re in the position I’m in, here. Fuck, hold on, the soju bottle won’t—there. Okay. It’s hard. Not the soju. Being. Knowing I’m a player in the Lord’s grand ineffable plan. I have to accept that what happens is by design, but I’ve never _doubted_ before, Jin. How can we know what’s right, and whether anything is right, other than what’s been established since the beginning? How can we measure _fate_ by that standard? Courses of action aren’t right or wrong, they’re a sum of the values of their components—“

_“Hello. You’ve reached the voicemail box of Kim Seokjin. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and I, or one of my representatives, will return your call at our earliest convenience.”_

“…cut me off, but I need to talk to you, even if you’re not here. He’s dropping Hunchul and Ikje and Donghyuk and making me leader. Yoongi and I are all that are left, and he’s going to hate me. I know you think the rap thing is inane or stupid or whatever, but it’s important to me and it’s important to _him_ and we’re down to four. Three, once Hyosang is gone. Hyosang is going, too. I thought we’d be sending a message, _saving_ people with our music, but they’re throwing us into an idol group and I’m sure you’ve been _living in the world_ for long enough to know how rare any real substance—“

_“Hello. You’ve reached the voicemail box of Kim Seokjin. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and I, or one of my representatives, will return your call at our earliest convenience.”_

“…and I’ll have to fight that much harder for it, I guess. And have faith that the Lord’s plan is best for me and for _humanity_ , but it’s so hard to see past the individual once you’re this close. Hunchul…Yoongi.”

_“Hello. You’ve reached the voicemail box of Kim Seokjin. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and I, or one of my representatives, will return your call at our earliest convenience.”_

“I can’t say it again, you know I can’t, but I _feel_ it. Jin. I’m drunk and I’m so _tired_. I’m _tired_ , Jin. Adrift in something so much bigger than me. And you. You’re so warm, and it’s so cold here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cry at me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/smol_tsundere)


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